His mother’s end of terrace house is silent, even tranquil, filled with summer sunlight, but for him the clamour of memory is deafening. Standing in the dining room, overlooking the neat back garden, he draws his finger across the table and the backs of the chairs and smiles; it is as if her life-long enemy, dust, has realised that their battle is, at last, over. He sits at the table and looks at his feet resting on the salmon pink carpet and wonders, as always, why she chose such an impractical colour; it was uncharacteristic.